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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Wow, where do I start?! I feel like I'm accepting an award at the grammy's....First, I'd like to thank GOd for this amazing house...no, but seriously, I do. Yesterday when we were moving in, everyone kept saying how great it was and I was just overwhelmed at God's provision to how He got us here. But, I feel I'm getting ahead of myself.....it all started early this week.

We have been working with Cody's best friend, Matt Shanlian, for our mortgage. A-MAZING! If you ever have any mortgage needs, he is absolutely the person to call! I digress, so we're working with Matt, I'll call him Shanlian as to not confuse, as our Realtor is also named Matt, Matt Hicks-a great and wonderfully sweet and patient realtor...once again, if you ever need 'realtoring things' call him!! Ok, too much digressing--I'll start the story!

Monday, Cody left for a conference in Orlando, Florida with Jeff (senior pastor), Dave (connections pastor) and Jim (awesome sound and tech guy). So, that left me to fend for myself and all this mortgage-y stuff (awesome timing, honey!! haha) Since Shanlian is a good friend of ours, we typically talk often anyways--but this week, I feel our email and phone accounts were inseparable! We hadn't gotten the final 'approval' for our loan, so I was trying to get any and all conditions met, as quickly as possible! On Monday, it seemed all was moving smoothly and we were on track to close Friday, the 23rd. Matt, ironically, was down at the conference in Florida, as well, so him and Cody chatted a bit about the things we needed-later this genuinely proves to be a God thing they were in the same location!

So, about Wednesday we start getting info from the processor that they are needing a few more things (making me quite nervous). So, I quickly forward emails and documents like rapid fire and try to appease their demands. We still aren't 100% sure if we can close on Friday. So, in the midst of packing up the rest of the house, switching over cable/internet/utilities, I'm trying to figure all the mortgage-y stuff out! Oh one side note, Matt's sister, Leah (the most incredible loan processor EVER...but I'll get to her later), has been out on maternity leave and has been doing as much work as a woman can do with a newborn. So, they are utilizing the loan processor in California that works directly with their underwriter. (If you don't know what these words mean, just go with me, I don't either!) Anywho, this California loan processor, let's call her Matalie, is well a bit on the slower side of things. Let's just say if California wasn't on the other side of the country, I'd probably drive there and have a nice sit-down chat with Matalie and her boss. Also, needless to say, the time change added quite a lovely dynamic to this entire process, as their 'close of business' is around 10 or 11pm, our time!!

So, Wednesday Matt says he will know for sure on Thursday if we can close on Friday. So, I wait as long as I can and then finally cave to text him "any news yet?" And of course, he's already been on the phone and has asked his sister Leah to take a look at what's going on. Leah is what we like to call a beast of the loan processing world, she slays loans like, well, like something that slays things a lot (clearly, I don't watch action movies). But, she is on the phone to California the second they open their doors and between Matt and her, they are knocking this thing out of the park! So, we wait and wait and wait, answer more questions, wait more, sign more paperwork, fax it back and have it faxed to Cody and Matt in Florida, answer more questions and wait more...the loan is still not finally approved (come ON, Matalie, you have had 2 months!)

So finally, I can't keep my eyes open any longer and I fall asleep with cell phone in hand, waiting for the beloved "we're set to close!" text to come in.....I must have been dead to the world, because I woke up at 2:30am and I had gotten a text at 11:30 from Matt with those glorious words....but wait, there was more "we put a rush on docs and let's hope for the best in the mornig"....First of all, what are DOCS and second, WHAT!? So, I spend the better part of that hour thanking God, but lifting up ONE more prayer... Cody finally rolls in from the conference at 3:30am and I finally drift back to sleep...hoping "for the best in the morning".

8am Friday morning rolls around and we still don't know if we're closing! I had planned on not coming in to work that day because I needed to get all the stuff together for closing; but I, begrudgingly, walk into my office and answer the "why are you here?" questions and sit at my desk... trying to explain to those who are helping us move that night that we may or may not need them (I'm sure that email made LOTS of sense! haha) Well, the night before Shanlian had raised the option of talking to the realtor to see if we could ask the seller's to let us move in early, since we had so much already set up and ready to go for Friday and Saturday. I brushed that off because I didn't even want to think about asking the sellers for one more thing, especially we hadn't even been officially approved for a loan!

Well early that morning, Leah and Matt get back on the phones and they are doing their thing--they are kicking butt and taking names! I was so excited to have the two of them working so hard for us, even if we weren't friends we'd be happy to know them! Well, things start to get quite crazy---it's about 10:45am and I'm pretty certain we aren't set for closing at noon. So, I email Matt (the realtor) and explain the situation to him, "we are approved, but the documents are moving quite slowly and we still have to send it to the lawyers for review...could you ask the sellers if we could move in this weekend, but officially close on Friday?" Honestly, I thought that was a waste of time, the sellers had seemed to be quite unaccommodating, so we were pretty much gearing up for a "no" to that question. About a thousand emails and phone calls later, we are speeding to our realtor's office to sign an early entry form! They let us in EARLY!! Honestly, I was SHOCKED! God was so good to us, even if this whole thing was way more complicated then I had imagined haha, He always has our best interests in mind! I got a call in the afternoon from the lawyers office explaining that they would feel more comfortable if we moved the closing to Monday at 2pm, but we can pick up the keys and sign the form for early entry around 2pm.

Well, we scrambled to tell everyone that we ARE ON for moving, but we didn't close (also, that email/text/phone call probably made a ton of sense to everyone!) But, we had people at the house and helping us clean the new house, load boxes at the old one and cranking this move out! We had nearly everything moved into the new house in nearly 4 hours--with the amount of junk we have, that has to be a record!! We even got the bed set up and we were able to sleep in our new house for the first time last night!!

Yesterday was seriously a whirlwind, but it was incredible. I was unpacking books with some of the other girls and it was so surreal, the living room didn't feel mine yet; it was as if I'm just here for vacation and seriously overpacked on the books!

More than a new house, I have been overwhelmed at God's provision with finances, timing and just plain providing all the help we need and then some, for the move! God is too good to us, I only pray my life can be a smidgen of gratitude back to Him!!

Love you all,

LaRae

A HUGE shout out to the following people for all their help yesterday and in the days leading up to the move: